Purple
by TopKat
Summary: Remus/Sirius. Marauders Era.'"I see… I see…" Remus jerked his wrist away. "Leave off, Pads." Sirius took it back. "I see…" he pointed with his finger at the long line that crossed, diagonally, Remus' palm. "I see babies in your future." Remus snorted.' 100ficsPrompt: Purple


"I see… I see…"

Remus jerked his wrist away. "Leave off, Pads." Sirius took it back.

"I see…" he pointed with his finger at the long line that crossed, diagonally, Remus' palm. "I see babies in your future."

Remus snorted.

"I see millions of babies. _Squillions_, in fact. My inner eye is detecting the presence of many, many infants in your future." He held Remus' wrist still, its palm close to his eyes. Through the fog in the divination classroom, he had to.

"Wow." Remus muttered, sarcasm dripping from every syllable. "And who is carrying these squillions? Just so that I can warn them."

"Ah, well." Sirius said loftily, looking up from where he was bent over Remus' palm, into Remus' eyes, eyebrow lifted. "according to this line, here," he waved his hand over Remus', muggle magician style, then traced between Remus' thumb and the base of his hand with a finger. "says that _you _will be the lucky carrier of all these Squillions."

"Oh, what _fun." _Remus, despite himself, laughed. Sirius waggled his eyebrows further.

"Isn't it just? And for just a further galleon, good sir, you can find out who will sire them."

"In that case, I'd rather leave it to fate."

Sirius barked a laugh, looked around to check the professor wasn't watching, then leant back in his seat and put his feet in Remus' lap, letting go of the werewolf's hand. Remus looked around in agitation, hands hovering over Sirius' ankles to push him off. "Come on, Sirius. If we don't do the work this time, I'll get in trouble."

Sirius made a bored, dismissive noise. "Since when? Remember last time? All you did was predict my horrible, horrible death and you got top marks."

Remus grinned to himself. "Well, yes, but to be fair, I was really, _really _annoyed with you."

"If you didn't want frogs in your pants, you should have told me, and you shouldn't have left them folded in your trunk like that."

"Firstly, I think it's safe to assume that no one wants to wake up one morning to a crotchful of frogspawn. Secondly, you are a twat."

"I blame you entirely. Only a psychopath folds his underwear."

"It's not _psychopathic _to be neat." He pushed Sirius' legs out of his lap. Sirius put them back.

"Tell it to the ministry, love." Sirius squinted through the fog over Remus' shoulder and blanched. He held his hand out to Remus, throwing his legs to the floor and sitting up straight. "Do mine." Remus took it.

"Okay, well-" he peered at their palmistry book, and then back at Sirius' hand. "Erm. I think I see-" From the gloom, their professor appeared at Sirius' shoulder.

"Mr. Black! I had assumed you would not return, based on Mr. Lupin's predictions from last week. Were you, in fact, eaten by wolves?"

"No, sir. But almost!" Sirius chirped, glancing at Remus only once to try and make him laugh.

"Very interesting. Very interesting indeed." Professor Bantwich walked slowly around the table, his long purple sleeve trailing over Sirius' shoulders. Sirius pulled faces at Remus, trying to break him. Remus stared stoically back at him.

"Sir," Sirius asked in his most enthusiastic, simpering voice, "Do you think there's any chance Mr. Lupin has the inner eye?"

Their professor looked at them. Sirius smiled unblinkingly. Professor Bantwich looked vaguely unnerved. "I suppose. Perhaps. Very few wizards have the aptitude though, my boy. Very few."

"Oh, I think he's got a real knack, sir."

The professor eyed Remus, who did his best to look not-pathetic but only succeeded in grinning widely and making their professor look even more perturbed by the both of them. "Yes. Well. Perhaps." Bantwich patted Sirius oddly on the head, then wandered off. The mist was so thick that quickly he was just a shape in the distance.

Remus kicked Sirius in the shin.

"What on earth was that for?"

"Well, I just thought he should know what an expert divination-er you are."

"Diviner?"

"Divinationologist?" Sirius offered. Remus kicked him again.

"Do you want me to read your palm, or not?"

"Yeah, okay, go on then." Sirius gave him his hand again. They were silent. Remus coughed. "So?" Sirius said brusquely; overly so. Remus didn't look at his face; turned to the book instead, still holding Sirius' wrist.

"Okay, I think this says …" He pulled a face. "Erm, you're going to... I think you're going to live a long time."

"That's good."

"But you'll be …you'll face many hardships. I think those are the breaks in the line."

"Oh, well. Story of my life. It's not easy being this beautiful." He tried to sound long-suffering, and didn't quite manage.

Remus laughed gently and continued to look between the book and his palm. "I think you're going to, erm,"

Sirius cut him off. "Hey, Moons."

"Mm?"

"Can I ask you something?"

Remus' brain seemed to skyrocket towards his knees and lodge itself there. In fact, all of his organs took a significant downward trajectory and became stuck. He looked at Sirius. "Yeah?"

"About last week?"

"Yeah?"

"About James' birthday?"

Remus swallowed and looked at Sirius' palm again. "I think you're going to, erm, have three children…"

"Remus." Sirius so rarely called him by his first name that Remus nearly dropped his hand in shock. "Can we talk about it?"

"About what?" Remus looked him in the eyes, daring him, almost, to mention it. Sirius, Remus still holding his wrist, met his gaze aggressively, not smiling.

"James' birthday."

Remus shook his head and looked away. "I'm fine. I don't want to talk about it."

"Well, I do."

"Sirius. I would really, really rather not." He squeezed his eyes shut at the mental image; his mortifying drunkenness, the way he'd pulled Sirius away from the party, the ferocity with which he had kissed him. With which they had kissed. He felt embarrassed, above all. He knew what it had been, of course, and was perfectly prepared to leave it at that and never speak of their encounter again. Sirius though, apparently, had different ideas.

"Please? I haven't been able to get you alone in weeks."

"Well, maybe that was intentional." Remus muttered. He forged on with the palmistry. "You're going to lose your hair."

"Liar." Sirius laughed, but with that same, strange intensity about his eyes. "I did it on purpose, you know." He said, and Remus still couldn't face him. Sirius' hand flexed in his grip.

"Well, that's impossible, because you weren't the one who started sexually assaulting his friends." Remus told Sirius' palm. Sirius laughed.

"We were both _there, _Moons."

"I know. I just. I don't want you to think I want you to do anything about it, because I don't. We're happy this way. We're fine."

"I'm not." Sirius said quietly, and pulled his hand away. "Do you want me to do yours again?"

"No, I'm fine. This room makes me tired."

They sat in silence, Sirius flexing his hand, Remus putting his head back on the fat armchair he sat in and letting his eyes almost slip closed. Hating himself, he said, "Why aren't you happy this way?"

"C'mon, Moons."

"Well …what do you want_ me_ to do about it?" He said petulantly. Sirius shrugged, looking at the various baubles their professor left on every table – little gold, magical objects that clicked, or emitted fog. A giant crystal ball sat in the centre of every table.

"Let me take you out."

Remus snorted. "What, to Hogsmeade? So we can get hot chocolate and coo over eachother? You're joking."

"Well, I could do without the cooing, but-" Sirius shrugged. "It wouldn't be that bad, would it? Doing it properly instead of just when you're drunk?"

Remus shook his head. "You're mad. You're completely mad. This is just …I don't know. Weren't you seeing someone?"

Sirius waved a hand dismissively. "Please? Once? We'll ditch James and Pete, make a day of it. And then you can see how you feel."

Remus debated saying no, just because it was easier, but Sirius' genuinely fretful face made the words die in his mouth. He'd never seen that expression before - never in his life had he seen Sirius look nervous. Or, at least, not like this. He sighed, putting his head all the way back, almost burying himself in the chair. "Fine." He said quietly, looking at Sirius from the corner of his eye. "But it's your treat."

"Okay." Sirius grinned. He took Remus' hand again, snatching it out of his lap. "Hey, according to this, you're going to meet a tall, dark, handsome man."

Remus laughed. "Good. I hope he's fitter than you."

Sirius kicked him.


End file.
